Ernie Kovacs rocks

It's a shame that Ernie Kovacs' fame has not been as durable as his influence. Though Kovacs was one of great comedians and innovators of early TV, a mention of his name to people of my age and younger draws little more than blank stares and the verbal shrug, "I think I've heard of him."

Kovacs was one of the first people in television who explored the breadth of the new medium rather than use it to film plays or vaudeville routines. An entry in Wikipedia offers a better discussion of his innovations than I can give. I can only say that I have seen a little bit of his work and laughed at almost everything I saw. I also noticed that he rarely seemed to be in front of a studio audience, leaving his gags to fend for themselves.

Though Kovacs experimented constantly, he also recognized that great comedy is rooted in simplicity. Perhaps his most famous bit was the Nairobi Trio -- three people in gorilla suits and bowler hats performing a pantomime that could have been taken from a child's music box.



As you can see, there's not too much to it beyond great timing and clever use of music. It's triumph of minimalism.

Sure, folks in gorilla suits was nothing new to comedy, but not everybody can take that format and turn it into a comedy classic, as this clip shows



OK, what? What was that? Aside from the gorilla suits and robotic movements, we don't have anything close to what Kovacs did. First of all, one of the gorillas looks like the Death character from The Seventh Seal. And the music is pretty stark stuff that seems more appropriate to a goth funeral than a comedy skit. The gorillas are marching in place. Why? Is it a metaphor for the futility of life, that no matter how far we go, death claims us in the end? Is this supposed to be French existential comedy? Sure, we get the whoopie cushion as the big payoff, but it's kind of a cheap laugh (and, hey, I'll admit I love flatulence humor as much as the next guy, but in this case it looks like the easy out). And why is that one gorilla tormenting the poor bastard who just wants to play electric piano? That seems kind of mean. In the Nairobi Trio, it's the conductor who is the butt of the joke, thus giving us a dig at authority.

So, in short, if gorilla suits wind up in the hands of the wrong people, we can be given a view of the world in which we are condemned to lives of futility that only bring us closer to death, and the only comfort we have is a fart joke.

But the point here is to praise Kovacs, so if you ever come across a black-and-white show that features Percy Dovetonsils, Miklos Molnar or Matzoh Heppelwhite don't switch the channel so fast.